Statistics from the European Commission have revealed that both Oxford and Cambridge universities have seen their funding from the Horizon 2020 programme cut to practically zero.
According to these figures Cambridge University, which raised £433 million over the seven years of the last European research funding programme, has not received any funding in the first two years of the new Horizon Europe programme. While Oxford has seen funding collapse from €523 million to just €2 million.
While the UK’s associate membership of the Horizon Europe programme was agreed in principle as part of the Brexit trade deal negotiations in 2020, ratification has been put on hold after the UK failed to implement the Northern Ireland Protocol.
Funding, like this, for UK universities is crucial as it not only supports research but encourages collaboration between institutions and creates opportunities for expertise to be shared.
An “historic blunder of monumental proportions,” according to Simon Marginson, Professor of Higher Education at Oxford, there don’t appear to be any benefits from Brexit for UK science, with the UK becoming increasingly less attractive to highly qualified European researchers and students.
The UK’s loss appears to be the US and Europe’s gain as the government’s aim of turning the UK into a global science superpower seems to have gone the same way as so many other promises made about the ‘benefits’ of Brexit.
